Glaucoma is an ocular disorder associated with elevated ocular pressures which are too high for normal ocular activity and may reuslt in irreversible loss of visual function. If untreated, glaucoma may eventually lead to blindness. Ocular hypertension. i.e., the condition of elevated intraocular pressure without optic nerve head damage or characteristic glaucomatous visual field defects, is now believed by many ophthalmologists to represent the earliest phase of glaucoma.
Many of the drugs formerly used to treat glaucoma are guite unsatisfactory such as pilocarpine and physostigmine. .beta.-Adrenergic blocking agents are distintly better but still present cardiovascular and pulmonary adverse reactions. Carbonic anhydrase inhibitors are used to treat elevated intraocular pressure by systemic adminstration but only as a last resort because of the potential for numerous adverse reactions. Although there are topically active carbonic anhydrase inhibitors on the horizon, none has yet become available to the ophthalmologist for the control of elevated intraoculor pressure.
Now, with the present invention, there is provided a novel means of controlling abnormally elevated intraocular pressure by the topical ocular administration of a dopamine agonist.